Feline Exegesis

The Rabbi's Cat by Joann Sfar

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I read this on the strength of The Professor's Daughter that I found so charming.  This was a totally different kind of story about a cat in a sephardic household in Algeria.  Why it's in our library I can't imagine, but I am grateful!  I may also be one of the few people in town who can fully appreciate the book.  There are three stories in this volume, the first about the cat's desire for a bar mitzvah so he can return to his mistress.  Once he learned to speak (after consuming a parrot that would not shut up), he learned to lie, and so the rabbi separated him from his daughter.  The cat, however, argues theology with him. Heh!
In the second story, the rabbi is poised to lose his position as rabbi if he cannot pass a French dictation exam.  His cat, unable to enter and help him, prays for a miracle.  This is always a mistake, as my friend who helped someone pray to be released from the curse of daily hiccups could tell you.  I wonder if my friend is still hiccuping in her friend's stead ...  While the rabbi is waiting to hear about his status, a young man come to his grandfather's funeral and also announces that he is a not yet official new rabbi for the area.  The rabbi's cousin has a solution, a sword, and a lion, but nothing works out the way you'd think in these stories.
The rabbi travels to Paris in the last story in the volume.  By the end of the book, he is an enigma to everyone, except perhaps, his cat.
There's a lovely photo of Sfar and his cat on the flyleaf.  The cat is the model for the much more rangy looking drawn cat.  The art in this book is rough and all the text as if hand-written.  These are wonderful, amusing, and surprising stories.




View all my reviews